3/17/2009

Hello.

Jamie here.

Welcome to installment number two of the New Deal Tour Blog. We’ll try and make it more than a once-yearly situation… I mean we do play more than one show a year…

Currently flying with Darren to BWI to begin our week’s worth of March shows to some places we haven’t been to in five years, and to some places we haven’t been to ever. Things are moving along as planned, although we had a bit of a scare last night as dan informed us that he was too sick with the flu to stand up, let alone endure an 8-hour flight with 400 of his closest flying companions from London to Washington to play tonight in Falls Church, VA at the State Theatre.

Many nails were bitten and many fingers were crossed and when the news was sent that Dan was well enough to stagger onto a plane in London, a great cheer was heard throughout the greater Toronto area, or at least Terminal 1 of Pearson airport in Toronto.

Here’s a picture of Darren sleeping on the airplane. That’s his elbow sticking out, not his gut…

Poor Dan was sick up until he stepped on stage… and then he was sick some more, but he pulled thru like a trooper and we had an enjoyable show at the State Theatre in Falls Church, VA. It was nice to get back to Virginia, a place we’ve neglected over the years. We look forward to coming back to this part of the country more often. The State Theatre is also a beautiful venue. I urge you to check out a show there next time you’re in the area.

The always-genial Tim Walther (the man responsible for bringing us and a million other great shows to the D.C./Maryland/Virginia area) brought us a nice welcome gift of a mason jar of moonshine. Needless to say, we happily shared in the ‘shine, you know, just to be polite… it was the best moonshine I’ve ever tasted. It was also the only moonshine I’ve ever tasted.

For some reason, I’m now obsessed with the song “Reminiscing” by the Little River Band. It’s a pretty bad slice of late ‘70’s pop music, but I’m just that kind of guy. Needless to say, Darren and I played it at soundcheck in State Falls. Let’s see how many more times I can cram that cheesy tune into people’s ears this week.

Now I sit in the lobby waiting to head out to a late-night show in Asheville… more to report later.

Great drive to Asheville… took us through some places we haven’t been to in a while… Virginia, Tennessee and into beautiful North Carolina.

Our set was 2-4 AM… great crowd, fun times. Our crew worked pretty hard that day and had some long long hours… so next time you see John or Kevin, give them a big hug – they deserve it.

After a few hours of sleep, we headed off to Raleigh, NC, which is a rarity in New Deal land – a city that we’ve never played. While this little mid-atlantic run takes us to some cities we’ve sorely neglected over the years (and some, like Baltimore that we haven’t been to in seven years), this is the first time in a very long time that the New Deal is hitting a city that we’ve never played. We weren’t sure what to expect, but turns out that Raleigh is a beautiful city with really nice people. Our show at the Lincoln Theatre was great and we were happy to see so many people turn out to rock with us. The vibe was intense and we’re pretty sure that everybody (including ourselves) had a great time. We will be adding Raleigh to our list of “cities we must return to soon”…

We also met the guys from Telepath who would be opening for us over the next three shows. Nice people, funny guys, good band. We hope to share more stages with them in the future.

Next show – Baltimore. Now THERE’S a city we haven’t been to in a while. Seven years, as I mentioned above. We didn’t know what to expect in terms of crowd size or vibe, but turned out to be great. 600 people joined us for a dance-frenzy and we were having such a fun time playing that we didn’t realize we had played past the time limit. Oh well, maybe the club management will forgive us…

Dan – en route from Baltimore to Norfolk, VA

Norfolk, VA – The Norva. For those who haven’t been to this venue, I strongly recommend that you check out a show there, should you be in the neighbourhood. For those who might not get a chance to check out the dressing rooms there, allow me to give you a little tour. These dressing rooms might be considered some of the nicest for this size of venue (1200 people). It has a hot tub, tv lounge, multiple bathrooms and showers (a big thing for touring bands), a BASKETBALL court, and some really nice people to help you out backstage. Hands down one of our favourite places to visit, if just for the dressing rooms.

We also had a great show there, complete with a fantastic crowd. Maybe that backstage hot tub really did help!

The Norva dressing room –

Anyway, all in all it was a great week. We were able to visit some new markets and open them up to future new deal onslaughts, we met some great fans, saw some old friends and rocked a bunch of houses.